PITTSBURGH STEELERS

OFF SEASON CHANGES

Pittsburgh spent the off-season publicly courting Aaron Rodgers to run it back for one more season, and they succeeded. He’s announced this will be his final year in the NFL. The big change is at head coach – with Mike McCarthy taking the reins after Mike Tomlin stepped down after 19 seasons with the team. McCarthy has over 290 wins in the NFL and coached the Packers (with Rodgers as QB) between 2006-2018 and the Cowboys between 2020-2024. The Steelers also traded for veteran receiver Michael Pittman and he’ll be a nice addition alongside DK Metcalf. Defensively, they added cornerback Jamel Dean in one of their largest free-agent contracts ever.

QUATERBACKS

Aaron Rodgers returns for his final NFL season on a one-year deal worth up to $25 million. The Steelers placed an unrestricted free-agent tender on him to keep the door closed to other teams. Rodgers still has a decent arm and recorded 3,322 passing yards last season to go with 24 touchdowns and 7 interceptions. The worrying stat for Rodgers and the Steelers is that 76% of his attempts travelled under 10 yards last season – the highest rate in the league. It’ll be interesting to see if Mike McCarthy trusts him to air it out more this season. He does have two really solid receivers in Metcalf and Pittman at his disposal. Rodgers wants to win one more Super Bowl but I really don’t see that happening this year. Mason Rudolph returns as the backup QB and whilst he’s been serviceable, he’s not going to set the world on fire if he gets starting reps.

RUNNING BACKS

The Steelers lost Kenneth Gainwell in free agency but replaced him with former Panthers’ and Cowboys’ RB Rico Dowdle. Dowdle has back to back seasons with 1000+ rushing yards and had a couple of massive games last year with 206 yards and 183 yards in back to back weeks. His efficiency dipped later in the season but he’s probably an upgrade on Gainwell. Dowdle will be fighting for the starting RB position with Jaylen Warren. Warren had a very solid 2025 campaign, putting up 958 rushing yards and 333 receiving yards. He was Rodgers’ favorite dump-off option last year with 2+ targets in all but two games. This should be a solid backfield and I expect the Steelers to lean on the run a lot this season with Rodgers being more of a game manager. They might run with the hot hand at times and see who is performing better week to week.

RECEIVERS

Pittsburgh made a receiver trade for the second straight year, bringing in Michael Pittman from the Colts on a three year, $59 million deal after doing similar for DK Metcalf in 2025. Pittman looks like a good fit for where this passing game lives – short options. He averaged just 8.1 air yards per target in his best season, which lines up nicely with Rodgers’ increasingly short-range approach in the later stages of his career. DK Metcalf should still be WR1 and is the deeper threat to pair with Pittman’s skill set underneath. Roman Wilson rounds out the receiving group and the Steelers also have two solid tight ends in Pat Freiermuth and Darnell Washington. The concern here isn’t the talent, it’s improving on a passing game that was 21st in success rate and 16th in EPA per play last season. The QB situation is the same, so we’ll see if Mike McCarthy and Rodgers can improve on last year’s numbers.

DEFENCE

The defense remains the backbone of this team despite Mike Tomlin’s departure. Cornerback Jamel Dean will be a nice addition to the secondary, which already added Jalen Ramsey via trade last season. Dean arrives on the second-largest free agent contract in franchise history. The defense is now looking stacked, with Alex Highsmith leading the pass rush, alongside Cam Heyward, TJ Watt and Patrick Queen. This defense was what won the Steelers their division last season and they’ve arguably improved. They’ll be the key once again to masking some of their offensive limitations.